(Review) North of Here

North of Here by Laurel Saville

Publication Date: March 1, 2016

Pages: 241 (kindle)

Genre: Fiction

My Goodreads Rating: 3.5 Stars

NetGalley Summary:
The sounds of unexpected tragedies—a roll of thunder, the crash of metal on metal—leave Miranda in shock amid the ruins of her broken family.

As she searches for new meaning in her life, Miranda finds quiet refuge with her family’s handyman, Dix, in his cabin in the dark forests of the Adirondack Mountains. Dix is kind, dependable, and good with an ax—the right man to help the sheltered Miranda heal—but ultimately, her sadness creates a void even Dix can’t fill.

When a man from her distant past turns up, the handsome idealist now known as Darius, he offers Miranda a chance to do meaningful work at The Source, a secluded property filled with his nature worshipers. Miranda feels this charismatic guru is the key to remaking her life, but her grief and desire for love also create an opportunity for his deception. And in her desperate quest to find herself after losing almost everything, Miranda and Dix could pay a higher price than they ever imagined.

My Review: 
Okay, this book started out sloooooow. Like turtles stampeding through peanut butter kind of slow. It seems like much of this book takes place either in the characters' heads or is about the surroundings or inane details of the house or something.

BUT - I kept going. I'm glad I did keep going, but then this book got super weird.

It's funny, because looking at the cover you think it's going to be a sweet story about love and loss and it turns out that North of Here is not really that. Miranda has seemingly lost everything and is now living and in a relationship with Dix, who was her family handyman. He was there when she needed him and always helped her out. One day she moved into his house and decided to stay.

Their relationship is good, until Miranda starts to long for a family and they have trouble getting pregnant. Things escalate when she meets "Darius" who used to be David and is just...strange. Darius bought an old farm house from Sally and eventually just kind of started letting strange women live there. It becomes some sort of compound called The Source and, well, Miranda gets sucked in.

With their relationship strained, Dix tries to find out more about Darius and The Source, but it only pushes Miranda away.

You don't get a very deep look into The Source but you just know it's creepy. At about 54% into this book I was wondering if it was going to turn into a horror film.

Miranda is not a character that grows on you and neither is Darius. They both get pretty annoying and almost a little crazy toward the end. I did like how Dix and Sally's story played out. Finding out more about Dix was definitely interesting and, if anything, he's what kept me so interested in this book. I feel like his feelings for Miranda were true and she broke his heart when she joined The Source.

I was not at all surprised about how the story ended. It was wrapped up nicely, though parts of it were sad and hard to get through. I liked how Dix ending up, considering how Miranda treated him.

Very intriguing and captivating read.

Thanks to NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for the ARC.